The Tinker
by Sonny April
Summary: Remember the creepy tinker from "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory"? You know, the guy who says, "Nobody ever goes in, and nobody ever comes out"? Did you ever wonder what his backstory is? No? Well, I wrote one for him anyways. Enjoy!


"Sweetie, I'm gonna need some more flower pots pretty soon for our next stock of plants. Would you be a dear and buy some more from the garden supplies store on the other side of town?"

"Yes, Mother."

The mother gave her daughter some money from the cash register. "There. That should be enough. Now, don't take too long."

"I won't," the girl said as she exited the flower shop.

The girl enjoyed a nice stroll through her little town. All her neighbors were so friendly—they would all say "Hi" to her as she passed by—and of course there was Bill's Candy Shop…no. Mother said not to take too long. There was no time to indulge in frivolous sweets.

There was one part of the girl's journey to the other side of town that always enchanted her, yet mystified her as well: the old Wonka Factory. She stopped to a halt in front of the tall, cold, iron gates that stood before the factory. Between the iron bars of the gate, she could see a lonesome smokestack with "WONKA" spelled down the length of it in neon lights.

She heard strange stories of this place from long ago. Stories about how many people used to work in the factory, until one day, no one was allowed to enter ever again. And yet, the factory still continued to mysteriously run. Stories about how five lucky children were granted the opportunity to enter the factory, but not a single one ever came out. It creeped her out just standing in front of it, so she decided she'd just be on her—

"Curious place, isn't it, little lady?"

She jumped in shock. She turned around to see a very old tinker with a cart of knives.

"Y-y-you're the Old Tinker."

"Right you are, little lady."

"I've heard things about you."

"You have, have you? What kinds of things?"

"Well, that you know a lot…about the factory."

"Oh, I wouldn't say I know a _lot_ , but I do know more about it than anyone else roaming these streets."

"What do you know about it?"

"Well, I know that there used to be a young lad, about your age, who used to wander in front of these gates, just like you do. He's since disappeared into the factory along with four other children."

"What happened to them?"

"Nobody knows. Some say that lad now runs the factory himself. Others say he was made into candy, along with the other children." The girl was aghast. "But that's not what you wanted to hear. Oh, no. You want to know what's _inside_ , right?"

"Y-yes. Do you…know what's inside?"

"Do I? Why, I believe I'm one of the only people outside of those blasted walls that _does_ know what's inside. Would _you_ like to know?"

"I…suppose I could listen for a little while."

"Great. It all happened roughly twenty years ago…

"My wife was gravely ill. She had a disease that had no known cure at the time. I had given up all hope that she would survive. That is until my good friend, Grant, told me some very useful information.

"You see, Grant used to work for Willy Wonka. He worked in the factory as a janitor. And he told me some rumblings he heard from the other factory workers. Apparently, Wonka had perfected the key to immortality: a substance that was able to cure any illness and stop people from growing old. A fountain of youth, so to speak, except it was said to be a flower bloom. The Bloom of Youth, as he called it. And Wonka had made so many unbelievable, magical candies that it seemed possible that such a man could create something like that.

"Anyway, when he mentioned this to me, I knew that was my only opportunity to save my dear wife from death; however, soon after, the factory had been closed down due to spies stealing Wonka's candy recipes.

"About a year later, my wife was surprisingly still alive—longer than she should have been with such an illness—but I knew she was on the brink of death if I didn't do anything to save her. All the doctors had given up hope from the possibility of her surviving, just like I had before I knew about the Bloom of Youth.

"I knew it was time for me to take action, and desperate times call for desperate measures, as they say, so I consulted Grant. He knew there was a way to enter the factory through the sewers, and while he didn't know the exact location of the Bloom of Youth, he knew the layout of the factory fairly well, so he decided to assist me in my heist for the Bloom."

"And did you go in?" the girl asked.

"Well, of course. I wouldn't be telling you this story if I hadn't.

"As I was saying, one night, at about midnight, Grant and I met up in front of the factory gates. He opened up a manhole near the gates and crawled in. I hesitantly followed. He whipped out his flashlight, and we navigated the labyrinthine sewer system. It was very confusing to tell which way we were supposed to be going, and the nauseating smell certainly didn't help matters."

"Ew."

"You're telling me. Well, finally, we ended up where we needed to be, so we climbed out from the sewers through another manhole. The room we climbed up to seemed to be one of the deepest rooms in the factory. Pipes ran across all throughout the room, and giant, rusting boilers were aflame.

"After making our way out of that room, we found ourselves in a winding corridor, not unlike the sewers, except the smell of sewage was replaced with that of chocolate and sweets."

"Oh, that's much better," the little girl said.

"Yep. So I asked Grant, 'Where to next?' And he said, 'I dunno, I told you, I'm not sure where the Bloom is.' So I asked him, 'Well, where do you think it would be?' He said, 'Well…I think I might have an idea.'

"He led me to a giant, frigid room with a rather tall, brown mountain right in the center and powdered sugar falling to replicate snow. 'This is Fudge Mountain,' he told me. 'The private facilities are located at the other end of the room.'

"Now, you see, we couldn't just walk around the mountain; there was a large pit all around it, so we had to climb around the mountain just to get to the other side. We crossed the bridge onto the mountain and started climbing up the fudge. It was quite frightening—we didn't have any climbing gear on, so if we slipped, we'd have fallen into the pit. But while we were climbing the mountain, I decided to break off a piece of it to try it for myself. And the mountain was indeed made entirely out of fudge. Delicious, creamy, chocolate fudge. The best I've ever had in my entire life.

"Anyway, luckily, we managed to scale around the mountain safely, and we crossed the bridge on the other side into the private facilities. It was another maze-like corridor, but Grant managed to find a room that potentially could've held the Bloom of Youth, labeled 'Authorized Personnel Only—Wonka's Private Stuff!' It seemed kind of silly that Wonka would label such a room so blatantly, but we entered anyways.

"Not a good idea. As soon as we stepped into the room, we realized it was nothing but a steep slope leading straight into a rushing brown river. By that time, we couldn't do anything about it, and we fell right in. The river took us into a long, dark tunnel. We couldn't see a thing for what felt like ten minutes. Once we were led out of the tunnel, we noticed that we were headed straight towards a waterfall! We fell down the waterfall, but we luckily managed to avoid the rocks down below.

"We appeared to be in some large glen, which Grant soon explained to me was the Chocolate Room. Yes, that brown river we were being carried through was in fact chocolate. I wish I could say it was more impressive than it actually was, though, because apart from the smell, I couldn't tell the difference between that and the sewage we had seen earlier. But everything else was quite amazing. It was a little hard to see things clearly, as all the lights were turned off, but due to the large windows letting in the moonlight, I could see that there were large pipes sucking up the chocolate from the river. Growing on the grass, there were jelly bears growing on trees, giant lollipops sprouting up from the ground, and trees made from candy canes. It must be believed to be seen."

"I think you mean 'it must be seen to be believed,'" the girl said.

"No, I meant what I said.

"Well, anyways, we washed up to the river bank, and we climbed out ever so weakly. Grant and I barely had any energy left in us. We slowly stood up, dripping in chocolate from head to toe, and I noticed from the corner of my eye something rustling in one of the buttercup bushes. 'Did you see that?' I asked Grant. He said, 'Well, I _do_ see that,' and pointed to a small, shadowy figure across the other side of the darkly lit Chocolate Room. I only caught a glimpse of it before it disappeared into the shrubbery. 'Maybe it's just a kid or something,' I told Grant. He then said, 'Why would a kid be in here at this time of night?' He had a point. My heart started racing. I felt so vulnerable. As if someone, at any moment, could have just popped up from the bushes to attack us.

"And that's exactly what happened." The girl's eyes widened. "About fifty little men suddenly emerged from the sugar-coated foliage and tackled Grant and I to the ground. I have never feared for my life more than in that moment, before or since. It was hard to tell from the darkness, but it appeared as though the little men all had orange faces and green hair, but that was probably not the case. Nothing as absurd as that could have existed…or could it? With everything I had seen in the factory, it's hard to know.

"Anyway, like I was saying, one of the little men leaned in very close to my face, only about an inch from our noses touching, and whispered ever so violently, 'Get! Out!' The men all let us go, and Grant and I darted straight toward the door.

"We found ourselves in a hallway that started off very small, then soon grew to be normal sized. We entered the door at the end of the hallway, but it only led us to a small room with crazy black-and-white patterns on the wall. There were no other doors in there besides the one we came in through, so we went back out the door, but it led us not to the shrinking hallway, but to another room entirely! Grant was saying, 'I forgot how confusing it is to get around anywhere in here!' Finally, though, we ran down one more short hall, and the door at the end of it led us out of the factory. Grant and I quickly climbed up the factory's gates, and we never stepped foot behind those gates ever again."

"That's quite the story," the little girl said, astonished.

"That it is. And to this day, I still don't know if there truly is a Bloom of Youth, or if it was all just a myth. Maybe I was being too hopeful to even believe such a silly thing like that. My wife soon after died due to her disease."

"Oh, that's sad," the girl said.

"Yep. And I've since been out here, selling knives and telling the young 'uns the dangers that await in that there factory."

"Well, thank you for that story, but I really should be on my way, now," the girl said as she started to walk away from the Tinker.

As she continued to walk away, she could hear the Old Tinker echo through the dark, empty streets, "Up the airy mountain, down the rushing glen, we dare not go a-hunting for fear of little men. Nobody ever goes in, and nobody ever comes out!"


End file.
